Summary: Learn to Drive Week 6: The Obedience Factor stresses the importance of not only knowing God’s commands, but obeying them.

Tonight, as we follow up our baptismal service, and as we continue in our Learn to Drive in 2005 series, we want to look at the Obedience Factor. That is what baptism is about. Obedience to God’s command. Christ was baptized, and out of obedience, so must we be.

In our Learn to Drive series, last week, we talked about road signs, and their warnings to prevent us from harm. But in reality, the signs themselves don’t protect us.

It is our obedience to the signs that actually protect us from harm. If we choose not to obey them, then we will suffer consequences.

Tonight we need to learn HOW to obey the warning signs God gives us.

I want to take a close look at the actions of a man I greatly admire. This man was a man’s man. This man was not afraid of anyone or anything. The only fear he had in his life, was the healthy fear of God.

You see, God asked this man to do something that appeared to be so ridiculous, that without a doubt, he would be laughed at by all his neighbors, his distant relatives and in fact, the world. And not just for a few minutes, but for more than 100 years. That’s how long it took him to do what God had asked him to do.

Now is that embarrassing or what? To go talk to someone about Christ for 5 minutes is bad enough when you feel like you are making a fool of yourself. But for God to give you a job that would take over 100 years? I mean people would go to their grave thinking you were a fool.

But you see, this man had total faith in God. And he knew that God would never ask him to do something that wasn’t absolutely 100% important. God doesn’t waste our time, give us suggestions, or threaten us with false alarms.

No, God wants us to make the most of the time He has given us here on earth, He gives us commands (not suggestions) and He never threatens, He only warns us of impending events.

You know how that goes. God took 6 days (and a day to rest) to create a perfect world. Every day He created something new. And each day when He finished, He looked at what He had done and saw that “It was good”. Until He made man. Then He saw that it was “VERY good.”

Unfortunately, by Genesis chapter 6, (only 6 chapters later) God’s perfect world had become so corrupted by man’s poor choices, that God was actually sorry He ever even made us.

6 So the LORD was sorry he had ever made them. It broke his heart. 7 And the LORD said, "I will completely wipe out this human race that I have created. Yes, and I will destroy all the animals and birds, too. I am sorry I ever made them."

Now that is sad. We took something so perfect that God made, and turned it into something so evil and corrupt, that He was sorry He made us. But there was one saving grace. One person had not been affected by the surrounding corruption. You hear people say, “But everyone is doing it.” Thank God not everyone does!.